An Open Letter to the King of Spain: You Are on Moroccan Soil

An Open Letter to the King of Spain: Enter Ceuta and Melilla under the protection of your army, reside in them amidst the chants of your people, and fashion the keys to the two cities with your own hands and hand them to yourself - you are, historically and geographically, on Moroccan soil.

All those military protocols, field visits, tours amidst fabricated cheers, raised Spanish flags, and press headlines will not deny the fact that you, King of Spain, in order to geographically enter the two occupied cities of Ceuta and Melilla, crossed the Mediterranean Sea from your country in your European continent to North Africa; the African continent that shares with your lineage, identity, culture, and language, no ties whatsoever.

Historically, you only entered through invasion, via the imperialist campaigns known as Iberian Expansion in North Africa since the 15th century, followed by a renewed colonial presence under treaties such as the Treaty of Tetouan in 1859, driven by unbalanced power that bow to the law of the jungle, where the strong colonizer overpowers the weak. The two occupied cities remained under Spanish rule, which refuses to abandon its colonial mindset and negotiate as equals with modern-day Morocco; all while this same regime claims to defend an oppressed Palestine from Israeli colonization.

Furthermore, King of Spain, you continue to exploit Morocco's crises operating under that same law of the jungle, while we endure the consequences of widespread youth unemployment caused by the mismanagement of successive governments; a crisis that led to the mass migration disaster on July 30, 2026, when 60,000 young people attempted to cross from the two occupied cities - which fall under the Schengen visa - into Europe, resulting in the tragic deaths of nearly 100 Moroccans.

Instead of returning the bodies to Moroccan authorities for identification and a proper burial that respects their religion, culture, and sanctity in the presence of their families, you and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez insisted on burying them as unidentified individuals in numbered graves, in total violation of bilateral cooperation agreements and a disturbing breach of human rights and dignity. You then rubbed salt in the wound with your provocative visit to their numbered remains before the eyes of their grieving Moroccan families, epitomizing the height of a sadistic colonial mindset.

Claiming democracy, human rights, and support for peoples against colonization requires you, King of Spain, to start with yourself rather than lecturing others. It truly demands that you close the chapter on your imperial, expansionist, and colonial past, instead of launching these continuous provocations against an entire nation, its dead, and its youth. These youth, who migrated in search of work, now find themselves detained and humiliated by your police, enduring hunger, thirst, exposure, and displacement in camps that are demolished over their heads daily, while young women face rape and unwanted pregnancies. Rather than returning them to Moroccan authorities, you persist in torturing them while you celebrate, parade, and build yourself a 21st-century colonial glory with images and news headlines that can never erase your true reality.

If the Moroccan regime, its foreign ministry, diplomacy, and even its media have remained silent because it is currently pouring all its efforts and exhausting its political time advocating before the United Nations to end the conflict that you and your Spanish colonial regime fabricated over the Moroccan Sahara - a Moroccan Sahara you did not exit after the Moroccan Green March without leaving behind a "divide and rule" policy, leaving Morocco to fight for nearly a century to suppress separatist movements and unite the national ranks - we, as a people, and as independent activists, have only been silent these past days out of shock and pain, and if I speak here, it is to leave this letter for history.

To tell you: Cross the Mediterranean, King of Spain, and invade North Africa repeatedly; enter the occupied cities of Ceuta and Melilla under the protection of your army, reside in them day and night amidst the chants and dances of your people, fashion the keys to both cities with your own hands and hand them to yourself, and declare them the capital of Spain if you wish - but today, King of Spain, historically and geographically, you stand on the land of the Moroccan people, walking upon the rocks of their Moorish ancestors, breathing African air, and drinking Amazigh water. Your press headlines will never change the history and geography of this land, and one day, justice will prevail and rights will be restored to their rightful owners.

Thursday, October 15, 2026

Mayssa Salama Ennaji - Moroccan Political Writer and Activist